Don't look now, but the 2021-22 indoor track & field season begins Friday!

Just when you thought you were done with the collegiate cross country season, Friday marks the start of the 2021-22 indoor track and field season.

In the state of Washington, the indoor season opens Friday as Eastern Washington hosts the Candy Cane Invitational at Jim Thorpe Fieldhouse on the EWU campus.

Unlike previous versions of the Candy Cane Invitational, this year's event will consist only of a women's pentathlon and a men's heptathlon.

In the heptathlon, the field is led by Eastern's Quintin Porterfield (EWU Athletics photo), who finished fifth at last season's Big Sky decathlon with a personal best score of 6142 points. He enters the meet with a heptathlon best of 4725, set at the 2020 UW Invitational.

Porterfield will face off against Cooper Cummings and Ryan Kenney of Western Washington, both of whom were scorers at the GNAC championships last spring in the decathlon.

In the pentathlon, Eastern's Maggie Nelson is the top seed entered with a score of 3355, followed closely by Western Washington's Aliyah Dawkins, an NCAA high jump qualifier last season. Dawkins' personal best is 3310, also set at the 2020 UW Invitational.

Central Washington will send a group of four athletes to Cheney, led by defending GNAC 400 hurdles champ McCall DeChenne, who is also a conference scorer in the multi-events.

The first four events of the heptathlon begins at noon on Friday, while the women's pentathlon begins Saturday at 9 am, with the final three events of the heptathlon starting at 9:20 am.

Eastern Washington's release is available here.

In Fayetteville, Arkansas, a small group of Huskies will run at the Wooo Pig Classic hosted by the University of Arkansas Friday at the Randal Tyson Track Center.

Husky All-American Allie Schadler is entered in the women's 5000 at 4:15 pm Seattle time (6:15 pm local time), while Sophie Cantine and Madison Heisterman are entered in the women's 3000 at 2:50 pm Seattle time/4:50 pm local time.

Schadler's race features five runners who were All-Americans in the NCAA cross country championships two weeks ago, including Lake Stevens native Taylor Roe of Oklahoma State.

The start list for the Wooo Pig Classic is available here, while the meet will be streamed here.

NOTE: The sports information office of Eastern Washington, the University of Washington, and the University of Arkansas contributed to this report.

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